Porch Light Home Inspection

Completed a commercial property inspection off Greenwood Avenue in Bend, Oregon on a building that has been home to a number of successful businesses over the years. These established commercial properties carry a lot of character and operational history, and a thorough inspection helps a new owner understand exactly what they are acquiring before the keys change hands. We are proud to support our client as they prepare to take ownership and carry that legacy of business success forward from a great Bend location. Knowing the full condition of a commercial property before closing is one of the smartest investments a buyer can make.

Inspected a century-old home near the Old Mill District in Bend, Oregon and found that while the house has survived 100 years of Central Oregon winters, the foundation had a few thoughts of its own. The living room floor showed a noticeable slope with roughly two inches of drop corner to corner, the result of settlement in a foundation that was likely replaced sometime after the original rock and mortar construction common to homes of that era. In the crawlspace, mid-span floor support had been cobbled together with stacked wood shims, lumber sections, and CMU blocks, which gets points for creativity but not for engineering. A home this old has earned its quirks, but settlement and improvised structural support are the kind of findings that warrant a qualified structural professional before a buyer signs on the dotted line.

WTF Friday | Attic Edition 🤦‍♂️❄️

Our inspector opened the attic hatch and immediately got introduced to… the entire insulation pile.

Turns out there was no insulation dam or barrier installed at the attic entry, so the loose fill insulation decided to make a break for freedom the second the hatch opened.

A simple wood curb or insulation barrier would have kept everything where it belonged and prevented the surprise avalanche.

Not exactly the kind of “blown insulation” we like to see.

Happy WTF Friday.

Inspected a 1940s home in Bend, Oregon today and found some standout original features worth appreciating. The home retained wood plank ceiling panels, fir hardwood floors, and lava rock columns with hand-tooled raised rope mortar joints, a mid-century Central Oregon masonry technique where mortar is extruded slightly above the stone face to create a raised linear profile that gives the stonework a sculptural quality you simply do not see in modern construction. Details like these trace back to the Brook Scanlon mill era when local craftsmen built with materials pulled straight from this landscape, and after inspecting and remodeling many of these homes over the years it is always worth stopping to appreciate what survived. If you own a mid-century Bend home, it deserves an inspector who recognizes what it is and knows what to look for.